Did You Love Enough?

The last few months have been a real trying time for my family and me. However, they have also been a source of a wonderful lesson in life. During this time, I lost a close family member, who I dearly loved. The shocks of her sudden diagnosis of a lethal cancer and subsequently losing her within weeks of diagnosis have left us distraught. As we reconcile to this irreparable loss, we have been reflecting on the entire crisis and searching for the lessons it offered us. While there are many lessons to be learnt from this experience, I would like to share what I felt to be the most important one.

As this serious illness engulfed our lives, numerous issues flooded our minds. What disturbed us the most were the questions related to the meaning of life and the predicament around what finally remains of a person and their life’s actions. The insight we consistently grasped was that what sustains life, and what sustains after life, is purely love. Despite the challenges of the situation, somehow we were all quite calm, positive and strong. Besides our meditation practice, I believe, it was really the power of love that not only gave us this special strength during this troubled time, but also made those few weeks so precious. The anchor of love and compassion is what is now providing the support needed for the grieving family to deal with this void.

The shift, that I had been steadily experiencing over the past few years, from carrying the intellectual understanding about love in my head to experiencing it more fully in my heart, definitely got accelerated during this time. I have come to believe that love indeed has the strength to dissolve all our emotional wounds and differences. It is also perhaps the only thing that lasts beyond space and time. As Emily Dickinson, the 19th century American poet, wrote, “Love is anterior to Life, posterior to death; initial of creation, and the exponent of Earth”. Love brings us together, leads to our birth, nurtures us, provides us the force for growth, sustains our existence and is the legacy that eventually remains.

However, how easily we can ignore paying attention to love in our daily lives? How limiting our thoughts and actions can sometimes be? We fail to recognize that it doesn’t matter what we do, but it is the motivation behind it that makes the difference. When carried out with love and kindness, even a small task can spread happiness and joy around us. Conversely, a large project done with an egotistical agenda may not be of great service to others. Love contributes to furthering the cause of the universe, and thereby, gives our actions greater meaning. Life demands that we make compassion the guiding force behind all our actions and interactions – accordingly, at work, they can determine how we treat our colleagues and customers, and in our society, the consideration we have for the underprivileged.

Simultaneously, love is undoubtedly the most significant nurturing force in relationships. While we intellectually know this, how mindful are we of this in how we conduct ourselves even in our closest relationships? Repeatedly, we get caught up with our conditioned responses, of ego, fear, insecurity, attachment and anxiety, and become removed from our innate ability to love. Instead, these emotions make us feel separate and isolated – in the process, burying the love that exists inside us. Thus, a parent’s deep-rooted love for their child, when heavily clouded by their own fears and insecurities, gets expressed as anger.

Consciously staying attentive to spreading love and becoming open to receiving it, we feel totally interconnected, complete and whole. All of us yearn to be loved – it is one of our deepest motivations; receiving unconditional love makes us feel complete. As Mother Teresa said, “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” Being able to love someone unconditionally and openly receive their deepest love can be the most energizing emotions of a human experience. Marriage, partnerships and parenting offer the greatest opportunity to practice such unconditional love. The gratitude from experiencing love in our closest relationships inevitably leads us to be kinder in all other interactions too. The compassion inside us starts to flow outwards – towards our friends, community and the broader humanity. As a result, the virtuous circle of love continues to grow.

In the process, we journey into our inner self and connect with our true nature – one that is full of love and happiness. Our ability to love others is generally limited by our love for ourselves. Connecting with our deepest core, we start to notice the reservoir of love inside us that’s been waiting to express itself. Like the soul is never lost, so is our true nature of love. Recognizing this is liberating – it gives us the courage to wrestle with and overcome the limitations in our life. Experiencing deep love not only strengthens us in the present, but also makes us feel confident of the future and complete with our past. As Alfred Tennyson aptly wrote, “I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.”

Coming face to face with the death of a loved one, you recognize that the only moment to love is now. The only time to express our love and the only occasion to make someone feel special is in the present. Finality of mortality is not something we consciously think about while going about our daily business. However, when the relevance of all our other attachments seems to wane, the most haunting question on the death bed can be – did you love enough? This is a concern that crosses the mind of not only the dying, but also their loved ones. Did they use all the time they had with the person to express their love? This is a question that we all have the opportunity of an entire lifetime to prepare an answer for – a response that can well determine the difference between feeling complete with life or otherwise. For people we fear losing the most, they say, love them so much now that you don’t have to miss them when they are gone. All this requires being more aware in the present moment; being conscious of our inner thoughts, beliefs and emotions; paying attention to, and choosing to affirm, our loving, kind and compassionate intentions in each moment. The Sufi poet, Rumi, captures the essence of this effort well while suggesting, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

The last few months have been a real trying time for my family and me. However, they have also been a source of a wonderful lesson in life. During this time, I lost a close family member, who I dearly loved. The shocks of her sudden diagnosis of a lethal cancer and subsequently losing her within weeks of diagnosis have left us distraught. As we reconcile to this irreparable loss, we have been reflecting on the entire crisis and searching for the lessons it offered us. While there are many lessons to be learnt from this experience, I would like to share what I felt to be the most important one.

As this serious illness engulfed our lives, numerous issues flooded our minds. What disturbed us the most were the questions related to the meaning of life and the predicament around what finally remains of a person and their life’s actions. The insight we consistently grasped was that what sustains life, and what sustains after life, is purely love. Despite the challenges of the situation, somehow we were all quite calm, positive and strong. Besides our meditation practice, I believe, it was really the power of love that not only gave us this special strength during this troubled time, but also made those few weeks so precious. The anchor of love and compassion is what is now providing the support needed for the grieving family to deal with this void.

The shift, that I had been steadily experiencing over the past few years, from carrying the intellectual understanding about love in my head to experiencing it more fully in my heart, definitely got accelerated during this time. I have come to believe that love indeed has the strength to dissolve all our emotional wounds and differences. It is also perhaps the only thing that lasts beyond space and time. As Emily Dickinson, the 19th century American poet, wrote, “Love is anterior to Life, posterior to death; initial of creation, and the exponent of Earth”. Love brings us together, leads to our birth, nurtures us, provides us the force for growth, sustains our existence and is the legacy that eventually remains.

However, how easily we can ignore paying attention to love in our daily lives? How limiting our thoughts and actions can sometimes be? We fail to recognize that it doesn’t matter what we do, but it is the motivation behind it that makes the difference. When carried out with love and kindness, even a small task can spread happiness and joy around us. Conversely, a large project done with an egotistical agenda may not be of great service to others. Love contributes to furthering the cause of the universe, and thereby, gives our actions greater meaning. Life demands that we make compassion the guiding force behind all our actions and interactions – accordingly, at work, they can determine how we treat our colleagues and customers, and in our society, the consideration we have for the underprivileged.

Simultaneously, love is undoubtedly the most significant nurturing force in relationships. While we intellectually know this, how mindful are we of this in how we conduct ourselves even in our closest relationships? Repeatedly, we get caught up with our conditioned responses, of ego, fear, insecurity, attachment and anxiety, and become removed from our innate ability to love. Instead, these emotions make us feel separate and isolated – in the process, burying the love that exists inside us. Thus, a parent’s deep-rooted love for their child, when heavily clouded by their own fears and insecurities, gets expressed as anger.

Consciously staying attentive to spreading love and becoming open to receiving it, we feel totally interconnected, complete and whole. All of us yearn to be loved – it is one of our deepest motivations; receiving unconditional love makes us feel complete. As Mother Teresa said, “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” Being able to love someone unconditionally and openly receive their deepest love can be the most energizing emotions of a human experience. Marriage, partnerships and parenting offer the greatest opportunity to practice such unconditional love. The gratitude from experiencing love in our closest relationships inevitably leads us to be kinder in all other interactions too. The compassion inside us starts to flow outwards – towards our friends, community and the broader humanity. As a result, the virtuous circle of love continues to grow.

In the process, we journey into our inner self and connect with our true nature – one that is full of love and happiness. Our ability to love others is generally limited by our love for ourselves. Connecting with our deepest core, we start to notice the reservoir of love inside us that’s been waiting to express itself. Like the soul is never lost, so is our true nature of love. Recognizing this is liberating – it gives us the courage to wrestle with and overcome the limitations in our life. Experiencing deep love not only strengthens us in the present, but also makes us feel confident of the future and complete with our past. As Alfred Tennyson aptly wrote, “I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.”

Coming face to face with the death of a loved one, you recognize that the only moment to love is now. The only time to express our love and the only occasion to make someone feel special is in the present. Finality of mortality is not something we consciously think about while going about our daily business. However, when the relevance of all our other attachments seems to wane, the most haunting question on the death bed can be – did you love enough? This is a concern that crosses the mind of not only the dying, but also their loved ones. Did they use all the time they had with the person to express their love? This is a question that we all have the opportunity of an entire lifetime to prepare an answer for – a response that can well determine the difference between feeling complete with life or otherwise. For people we fear losing the most, they say, love them so much now that you don’t have to miss them when they are gone. All this requires being more aware in the present moment; being conscious of our inner thoughts, beliefs and emotions; paying attention to, and choosing to affirm, our loving, kind and compassionate intentions in each moment. The Sufi poet, Rumi, captures the essence of this effort well while suggesting, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”